Ike Sailor Receives SPAWAR Recognition

PORTSMOUTH, VA, UNITED STATES

05.29.2018

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashley Estrella 

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69)   

From the clash of swords and shields on ancient battle fields, to golden-chipped motherboards, technology has come a long way in national security. It is crucial in the conversation of war strategy, and essential to the security of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN69) (Ike). One of Ike’s cyber security analysts, Information Systems Technician 1st Class Matthew Kramer, has made strides in the technological community and received a letter of commendation from the Deputy Commander, Rear Admiral Edward L. Anderson, Fleet Readiness Directorate, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command on May 24, 2018.

Cyber security analysts, Navy-wide, competed to see who could efficiently and rapidly eliminate network vulnerabilities by implementing system upgrades. In the sprint to see which team could reach zero vulnerabilities, Ike finished first. The ship’s cyber warriors used advanced problem-solving to get the edge on the competition. These critical upgrades ensure the protection of the ship’s ability to stay ahead of threats and maintain maritime dominance. As the leading petty officer for cyber security analysts, Kramer is in charge of monitoring the ship’s network and he helped Ike win the competition.

In the midst of the competition, Kramer encountered an obstacle. One particular system could not be scanned and therefore could not receive the required upgrade to stay ahead of potential attacks. He led a team to not only change a setting to enable scanning for upgrades, he became a pioneer. Consequently, this triggered a huge wave of change for the settings on all of the same types of systems Navy-wide.

“Removing vulnerabilities increases the ability to protect people, information and equipment,” said Kramer. “We were the first to reach zero vulnerabilities, and working to protect networks from adversaries is important. We solved a Navy-wide problem.”

Operational security depends on the safeguarding of information. The ability to send information worldwide in a matter of seconds online makes the battle of protecting network breaches a challenging one.

In the letter of commendation, Anderson states Kramer and his team improved the cyber security readiness posture of every ship with the same version of the system installed.

Kramer has a history of excellence. He paints a picture of how his team kept the Ike safeguarded in the midst of a huge global cyber-attack that occurred online in 2017.

“The internet is not the safest place in the world,” said Kramer. “Last year, there was a virus which spread world-wide. It affected hundreds of thousands of people. The virus was ransom-ware which is a sort of spyware that locks down sections of computers and demands payment to regain access to the computer. There was a major initiative to ensure that our network was covered from any attack.”

The new frontier of today is cyber space. Global reach and real-time speed allows faceless enemies opportunities for clandestine attacks. Operational readiness depends on the speed of execution and anticipating potential threats. If there is an issue, then it is already too late. Ike leads the way in the clash of keyboards and their advancement of the Navy’s maritime technological dominance.
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• Date Taken: 05.29.2018
• Date Posted: 12.27.2018 11:34
• Story ID: 305282
• Location: PORTSMOUTH, VA, US
• Hometown: NORFOLK, VA, US